Author
Topic: When will CO2 emissions peak? (Read 9052 times)

I think that if damage means removal of the trees and then use them as fuel, it is direct human emissions (it goes into the air and not the ground, so outside the carbon cycle). If it is for e.g. furnature or floors, it is a reduction in carbon capture by CO2 sinks (the ground), and temporarily outside the carbon cycle.If the forest clearance means the now bare ground will start being a carbon source (I'm no expert) then that should count as human emissions (land use change) I think.

Logged

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning S. PoelsmaPrisons in your head!

The real world says the auction prices for solar and wind power are dropping like a stone. The only thing that stopped CO2 emissions from already being in significant decline is lobbying and dirty money from the fossil fuel industries, and inertia in the automotive giants.

I’m not questioning the competitiveness of wind and solar by a megawatt produced. I’m questioning if and when renewables will be able to reduce co2 emissions.

The real world says the auction prices for solar and wind power are dropping like a stone. The only thing that stopped CO2 emissions from already being in significant decline is lobbying and dirty money from the fossil fuel industries, and inertia in the automotive giants.

I’m not questioning the competitiveness of wind and solar by a megawatt produced. I’m questioning if and when renewables will be able to reduce co2 emissions.

I voted 2020-2024, simply because the steep rise in renewables over the next 5 years (with luck) will be more than the increase in overall demand for energy (just) and the roll-out of EVs will be significant by 2024.

I was tempted to plump for 2024-2029.

BUT I still expect CO2 ppm to reach 450 in the early '30s. (Populist Presidents trashing the land and the oceans).

Logged

"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!""And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

Without cheap energy from the north, the inhabitants of southern Germany receive an even greater increase in electricity prices.

And you say this as if it's a bad thing?

This can provoke unrest and rebellion. Many people do not understand that warming is dangerous. They believe that it is vice versa good (less heating costs, better navigation in the polar regions, more yields, less costs for warm clothes).

In this regard, the expensive green energy will lead to the loss of environmental parties. In this regard, I doubt that the peak of the emission will come in the 21st century.

Green energy is expensive (if you count not only generating capacity, but also power lines and energy storage infrastructure).

Logged

b_lumenkraft

For how i see it, there is indeed some provoke unrest and rebellion free-standing at the moment. Young people around the world realize a carbon tax is needed and not implemented. They protest on Friday and they do not protest for lower energy prices.

For how i see it, there is indeed some provoke unrest and rebellion free-standing at the moment. Young people around the world realize a carbon tax is needed and not implemented. They protest on Friday and they do not protest for lower energy prices.

Unfortunately, there are still many climate optimists who consider the problem of warming to be nonsense. Many of them are presidents of large countries (Trump, etc.). Others are directors of the most expensive films.

If you watch any fresh, expensive Hollywood movie about villains, most of them are struggling with global warming.

This is, for example, the Kingsman Security Service or the last part of the Resident Evil.

The Red Queen appears to Alice and explains that her program is in conflict, as she can never hurt an Umbrella employee but also must value human life. She plays a video of Isaacs explaining to Umbrella's executives a plan to release the T-virus, cleansing the world of humanity and its tendency of causing destructive catastrophes; many of the rich and powerful, including the company executives, are stored in cryogenic capsules in the Hive, with the intention of them rebuilding the world following the resulting apocalypse. The Red Queen warns Alice that someone in her group is helping Umbrella.

1. BP has good analysts for future use of FF. You only need to read their latest report to realise that FF production and consumption will continue to rise for at least 10 years, maybe 20 years.

2. Lot's of catch up countries with enormous population growth in Africa and SE Asia will drive consumerism to new peaks. Poor people will not pay the extra dollar for green tech.

3. Lot's of methane in the air, and ever more so as natural gas replaces coal. Methane yields CO2.

I voted the 2040/49 span.

On point number 2, keep in mind that renewables are now cheaper than coal and quickly becoming cheaper than natural gas. And the price of batteries continues to plummet as energy density continues to increase. So new coal plants probably wont be built after 2025 and new natural gas plants probably wont be built after 2030.

Also, electric vehicles are projected to surpass internal combustion engine vehicles within the next ten years.

I voted for 2024 to 2029, but I wouldn't be too surprised if we beat that by a few years and peaked in the early 2020s.

What a difference a year makes. Last year, the International Energy Agency annual report predicted there would be 125 million EVs on the road worldwide by 2030. Its new 2019 report is out and it has doubled that prediction to 250 million electric vehicles by 2030, assuming the 25 nations that are part of the Clean Energy Ministerial EV30@30 program honor their commitments.

electric car sales If they do, that will mean 43 million new EVs are sold in 2030. If the more conservative “new policies” scenario prevails, 23 million EVs will be sold in 2030 and the total worldwide will reach 130 million.

Quote

In general, IEA predictions tend to be on the conservative side, so the size of the EV market in 2030 could be significantly larger than suggested by this year’s report. After all, the IEA’s own forecast doubled in just the past 12 months. Absent the US forcing the world to start driving coal burning vehicles, for EV advocates the future is bright indeed.

Around 70 million cars are produced annually now. So 43 million EVs in 2030 would be taking more than half off the road.

The IEA report is pretty conservative. I've seen other articles that indicate that once EVs reach price parity with ICEs, the demand for ICEs will plummet due to the advantages of owning EVs (lower maintenance, better performance, etc...)

China has internal structural problems, specifically - the existing and growing loans to State Owned Enterprises, especially by Provincial and Local Governments, which never gets fixed,- other ills hidden in the Shadow Banking System of which the West knows but a smidgeon.

Trump.Bloomberg and others have already commented on how the sugar-rush from last year's tax cuts have evaporated,The China US trade spat is morphing into war,

- and now for no good reason he is having a go at Mexico. This has really spooked the markets, fear has overcome greed. When the price of crude goes down (despite Iran, Libya, Venezuela) and the price of Gold and US Treasuries goes up on the same day you know a lot of people are running to safety.

Trump could be the trigger that pushes the world into recession. Given that the world is awash with more debt than 2009 on any measure you choose, failure to sort out this market decline and possible recession could take the world into another depression, in time for the November 2020 US Presidential election. (Couldn't happen to a nicer guy) Emoji for sarcasm required.

In other words, Trump's dumb bash at Mexico could be a tipping point for the world economy. Chaos theory and butterfly's wings etc. (Trump a butterfly? No. Butter? No. Lard? Yes. Fly? Yes.)

Possibly.The longer Trump keeps throwing muptiple spanners in the works the more likely it will be.

But don't take my word for it.

EconomicsMorgan Stanley Sees Recession Within a Year If Trade War Gets Any WorseBy Will Mathis2 June 2019, 14:42 BST Chief Economist Chetan Ahya warns of impact to global economy Investors underestimate threat of increased tariffs on China

Quote

Investors may still be underestimating the full risk to the global economy from a trade war, even after U.S. stocks capped the worst month of the year.

A recession could begin in as soon as nine months if President Donald Trump pushes to impose 25% tariffs on additional $300 billion of Chinese imports and China retaliates with its own countermeasures, according to Chetan Ahya, chief economist and global head of economics at Morgan Stanley.

The rift between the Trump administration and China has escalated as each side blames the other for the breakdown in talks. Over the weekend, Trump celebrated his trade policies and the recent move to impose tariffs on Mexican goods in response to illegal immigration.

Quote

When you are the “Piggy Bank” Nation that foreign countries have been robbing and deceiving for years, the word TARIFF is a beautiful word indeed! Others must treat the United States fairly and with respect - We are no longer the “fools” of the past!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2019

While stocks have declined, investors are still overlooking the impact the trade war will have on the global macroeconomic outlook, Ahya wrote in a note on Sunday. Growth will suffer as costs increase, customer demand slows and companies reduce capital spending, he said.

As the negative effects of the tariffs become more apparent, it may be too late for political action, according to Ahya. Policies to ease the impact are likely to be too reactive and slow to take effect.[/size]

Yep, recession in 2020 and therefore probably a peak this year (2019). Then it depends on how fast, if at all, a proper recovery can be triggered. Oil demand may then be in a tug of war between EV's and other electrification (trains, short journey ships etc.) and economic recovery.

If we're talking about anthropomorphic emissions, then yes there will certainly be a permanent peak at some point. It could be when the sun expands and melts us off the planet in ~ 5 billion years. But there are some very good reasons to think it will be much sooner.

I don't think political action will ever get close to accomplishing it though. Either a complete collapse of civilization as we know it, or at least a massive population collapse. On the order of centuries, maybe sooner.

But if we're talking about when atmospheric CO2 will next peak, then on the order of millions of years.

The ice stages these past few million years tended to cycle about 100,000 years: 10 interglacial, 90 icy K years. I recall from Richard Alley's - entertaining 2012 one-hour long lecture on the geological process - that the natural Earth processes to reduce CO2 by weathering of minerals (olivine, etc.) is on the order of 100,000 years.

a day at the park to a geologistan afternoon lark to an astronomermore than forever to a politician

Because positive feedbacks will sustain carbon emissions and isn't this the time scale of carbon removal by normal carbon cycle processes?

It may take 100,000 years to fully remove 93% a carbon spike back towards the prior level. However the peak could be inside 1 year. the 100,000 years is of slowly declining levels ie after the peak not before the peak.

You brought in carbon feedbacks and I am not sure how long we would expect these to go on for. I imagine there may be possibility of a temporary runaway effect which grows in size for a few decades. However, we generally think we are a long way off a true runaway effect.

Without invoking a true Venus like runaway effect, I don't see how you get millions of years before the peak.

What needs to happen is that the world stops increasing atmospheric co2 mainly by the cessation of fossil fuel burning by around 2040. Otherwise we will be tracking somewhere between rcp6 and rcp8.5 and human civilisation will experience a disaster well before the end of this century.

We use an energy production capacity of about 20TW and we can meet that with zero carbon emitting sources. The one which can be quickly installed in large numbers is solar PV. 400 000km2 on rooftops, pontoons and in sunny desert areas would provide well above half of our consumption. Buffering, storage and transport are only a slight technical problem. We can do it and governments will realise within a matter of months that they will have to.

The ice stages these past few million years tended to cycle about 100,000 years: 10 interglacial, 90 icy K years.

Sure, probably due to orbital variations (Milankovitch cycles), which causing very minor forcing over long periods (relative to anthropogenic emissions).

Quote

natural Earth processes to reduce CO2 by weathering of minerals (olivine, etc.) is on the order of 100,000 years

Fair enough. I was too bold in saying the wouldn't be a maximum for millions of years. On the other hand, I also don't think comparisons to the last million years are necessarily relevant anymore. There is mounting evidence that we are entering a new era now, so who knows what feedbacks there will be. Has it been studied? E.g., Apparently much of the atmospheric CO2 removal near glacial peaks was due to weathering of newly exposed continental shelves due to sea level drops. Obviously we won't be seeing any of that...

Quote

Our results also support the notion that the current CO2 concentration of more than 400 ppm is unprecedented over at least the past 3 Ma and that global temperature did not exceed the preindustrial value by more than 2°C during the Quaternary. In the context of future climate change, this implies that a failure in substantially reducing CO2 emissions to comply with the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming well below 2°C will not only bring Earth’s climate away from Holocene-like conditions but also push it beyond climatic conditions experienced during the entire current geological period.

It may take 100,000 years to fully remove 93% a carbon spike back towards the prior level. However the peak could be inside 1 year. the 100,000 years is of slowly declining levels ie after the peak not before the peak.

I stand corrected. I should have said orders of magnitude longer, not millions of years. And furthermore there are different types of peaks: some are sharp, while others are at start of a gradually sloping plateau. I guess I had this in mind...

while others are at start of a gradually sloping plateau. I guess I had this in mind...

Fair enough.

I assume we take it that 5 or 10 million years of gradual slope towards Eocene Optimum is a long period of increasing forcing rather than a quick spike release. While correct on timescale following a spike release, I should admit it still means I haven't ruled out a million or 10 million year period of increased forcing being triggered. Shorter period seems more likely (many more fast wriggles) but still a possibility.

E.g., Apparently much of the atmospheric CO2 removal near glacial peaks was due to weathering of newly exposed continental shelves due to sea level drops. Obviously we won't be seeing any of that...

Does it have to be "newly exposed"? & "won't be seeing any":

I thought the long term balance from weathering was that warmer weather means more and heavier rainfall causing more weathering which reduces the CO2 level and temperature. Colder weather means less weathering so volcanic action puts more CO2 into atmosphere than the weathering removes.

So we will be seeing more rock weathering, but it is a very slow feedback, as in millions of years to have much effect. Or have I got this wrong?

I thought the long term balance from weathering was that warmer weather means more and heavier rainfall causing more weathering which reduces the CO2 level and temperature. Colder weather means less weathering so volcanic action puts more CO2 into atmosphere than the weathering removes.

So we will be seeing more rock weathering, but it is a very slow feedback, as in millions of years to have much effect. Or have I got this wrong?

Whilst some governments have declared climate emergencies, they do not appear to realise they need to act upon it. Even the UK seems hell bent upon a fracking programme for gas extraction. This needs to stop and a zero carbon energy infrastructure needs to be developed and quickly.

Right. Or higher, since IPCC projections are conservative. How could emissions stop or even substantially slow by 2040? So far there is almost no change (except for the worse), despite awareness of the problem for many decades.

Right. Or higher, since IPCC projections are conservative. How could emissions stop or even substantially slow by 2040? So far there is almost no change (except for the worse), despite awareness of the problem for many decades.

Renewables are now cheaper than coal and natural gas. Investments in renewables are far outpacing investments in fossil fuels. In the USA, utility companies are shutting down coal plants and replacing them with wind and solar.

EVs are already cutting into demand for ICEs. Within 10 years, EVs are projected to outsell ICEs.

The report shows that electrics will take up 57% of the global passenger car sales by 2040, with electric buses dominating their sector, holding 81% of municipal bus sales by the same date.

Good to see such a prediction (although I'll believe it when I see it). But even if it did come to pass, would it mean a reduction in emissions, even just from this sector (transportation), or would it only offset some of the increased driving? And how much of the energy used to build and charge these EVs will come from renewables? In the grand scheme of things, how much would this bend the emissions curve? Still, it's good to hope for some bending...

The report shows that electrics will take up 57% of the global passenger car sales by 2040, with electric buses dominating their sector, holding 81% of municipal bus sales by the same date.

Good to see such a prediction (although I'll believe it when I see it). But even if it did come to pass, would it mean a reduction in emissions, even just from this sector (transportation), or would it only offset some of the increased driving? And how much of the energy used to build and charge these EVs will come from renewables? In the grand scheme of things, how much would this bend the emissions curve? Still, it's good to hope for some bending...